Amnesty International aims to turn slacktivists into participants with more consistent brand message

The charity wants to turn those sympathetic to its objectives – what it describes as slactivists and clicktivists – into active participants.

The push began is being led by Jane Clancey, who was appointed last year as its first head of global brand.

Clancey works for the International Secretariat, the equivalent of Amnesty’s HQ, which is responsible for the organisation’s research and leads its campaigning work. Clancey told Marketing Week it differs to a corporate centre because it doesn’t “dictate” what its various local offices do, instead “facilitating” their work.

However, this means that Amnesty has lacked one voice with people getting a different message from the charity depending on how they interact with it. For example, she said, Amnesty might be talking about one campaign on its social media sites but something totally different on its websites.

“I am here to try and bring consistency and coherence to the way we present Amnesty. Before we had lots of different voices, there were a lot of people doing my job as part of their job but no one had a chance to focus on it,” said Clancey.

“The opportunity of digital platforms gives us a chance to join things up a bit more.”

Having taken on Clancey, Amnesty’s next step is a revamp of its international website which will go live at the end of February. The work is being done by digital agency Code Computerlove and will aim to inspire as well as engage with visitors.

Clancey admits that while Amnesty has always understood its purpose, it has not done a very good job of communicating that. She believes that simply posting content, which Amnesty does on a daily basis, is not enough, with the charity needing to make it easier for people to get involved.

“There is a job we haven’t been doing and that is joining up our content with effective storytelling. We have talked coherently about the people working for us and injustice but we need to tell personal stories in a way we haven’t in the past. Our content needs to inspire sharing and mobilise people, linking people up to campaigns they want to get involved in,” she said.

The new site will include improved search and navigation, making it easier for people to find campaigns relevant to them and join up with local Amnesty websites. The hope is the site will act as a hub showing curated content that is updated more regularly around themes that then form the basis of its wider communications across traditional and social media.

“We get good reach but we want people spending longer on the site and to make it part of a journey rather than just a destination,” she said.